Lily gets a Nickname
by SomethingToDoWithSiriusBlack
Summary: Oneshot. Sirius being... well, not serious :P. Remus shares his 'furry little problem' story. The others reveal their 'furry little friends' No swearing. I suck at these things. Please read! :


Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, James Potter and Lily Evans were all sitting in the Heads' common room. It was a stormy day in February, and they had gathered there out of boredom. At the moment, there was no sound but the wind outside, and the rain hitting the windows. But that was soon to be disrupted.

Remus Lupin was nervous. He felt bad for not telling Lily about his 'furry little problem', and making James lie to Lily once a month. Because of that, he had been playing with the idea of telling her. He knew that she was a good person, and that she didn't grow up with the prejudices about werewolves, but he couldn't help being afraid that she would run away from him as fast as she could. He had come to rely on Lily quite a bit. He enjoyed spending time with her whenever he needed to get away. She would often come across him sitting by himself in a deserted hallway, and she would just sit down beside him, and not say a word. Plus, he knew what it would do to James and Sirius. James would be stuck in the middle of one of his best friends, and his girlfriend. Sirius and Lily had bonded because when she started to hang out with them, Sirius had just run away from his family, and was having a hard time. Lily helped him with that because she had more experience with it than the other boys with her sister, and she was the sort-of outcast of her family as well. He just didn't know what to do.

Peter Pettigrew was scared. He had just gotten another letter from his father, telling him that he needs to stop hanging out with all the 'mudbloods' and 'mudblood-lovers' and start hanging out with the 'nice purebloods' and such in Slytherin. Ever since his mother had left them, his father had gotten pushier and pushier about Peter joining him and his precious 'Dark Lord'. He had wanted to tell the others about these letters, but he was scared that they would think him weak. He decided that he wouldn't tell anybody about them, and just ignore his father and hope he just went away.

Lily Evans was unnerved. For the past 30 minutes, Sirius had been staring at her. Every time she looked at him, he had been staring back, with his head cocked to the side like a little puppy, and a thoughtful expression on his face. She was positive nothing was on her face (She had checked) and she and James had been dating for about two months now, so it couldn't be that either. She was about to snap.

James Potter was happy. He had the girl of his dreams. Lily Evans. The fiery, beautiful, smart girl, no woman, who had been fighting with him since First year. That had been his fault, but that's another matter entirely. All that mattered was that she had given him a chance.

He also had the three greatest friends in the world. Moony, Padfoot and Wormtail. Remus, the smart one, Peter, the loyal one, and Sirius, the... weird one. Who was currently taking over Remus' role as the smart one, or trying to anyway, judging by the look on his face.

"A tiger!" Sirius disrupted the silence, with an excited expression on his face. The remaining four people in the room all stared at him in a shocked silence. Finally, James bravely asked what the others were too afraid to.

"What?"

"A tiger! If Lily here became an animagus, she'd be a tiger!" His excited explanation was followed by another shocked silence.

"Padfoot… Are you okay?"Remus asked cautiously. Sirius' face sank.

"Don't you see it?" They all shook their heads. "She's a great fighter, feisty, like to fight her own battles, and she's a red-head!" he exclaimed.

"And how do you know so much about how your personality and character traits will tell you about what your animagus form will be? We haven't covered that in Transfiguration yet. And don't try to feed me some cock-and-bull story about you looking it up in the library. I know you haven't been in there in the last 3 years. You were bragging about that last night at dinner." Lily asked, after recovering from her shock and amusement.

Remus was literally shaking. 'It's now or never' he thought to himself.

"Lily, before Sirius answers that, I have something to tell you. You just have to promise not to tell anyone." James, Sirius and Peter all stared at him, open-mouthed. "Do you promise?" With her nod, he continued. "When I was 6, I was out playing in my backyard at night. My parents were sitting on the back porch watching me, and I was gradually getting closer and closer to the woods that bordered our property. Once on the border of the woods, I decided to climb one of the trees so I could get a better look at the moon. The last thing I remember from that night was my mum screaming, and a searing pain in my leg.

"I woke up the next morning in the hospital, with my mum crying by my bedside. I was in the hospital for 6 months, and after I got out, I had no hope of coming to Hogwarts. No Headmaster in their right mind would let a Werewolf into a school with hundreds of other children." He paused, waiting for her reaction, with a scared look on his face, and the other three all watched Lily with nervous expressions on their faces. Lily just smiled at them.

"I've known since Third year Remus. You don't have to worry about me telling anyone, or deserting you. After all, none of you knew that I knew until now." She laughed. The boys all gaped at her.

"How did you find out? I thought we were being careful." Remus asked, after getting over his shock.

"Well, the fact that you left every month helped. Plus, you always said someone else was sick, while you looked like death warmed up whenever you went away. So, I wrote down the dates you left, and noticed that there was normally about the same amount of time in between them. One day, I heard you four talking about Remus' 'furry little problem'. That got me even more curious. Then we studied werewolves in DADA, and I put it all together. That's why whenever I found you sitting by yourself, I would sit beside you. It was my way of giving you support, because I noticed you would do that directly before and after a full moon." The four boys stared at her in shock.

"Why didn't you ask me or talk to me about it?" Remus asked.

"Well that would be an interesting conversation. Hello Remus, great weather we're having. Oh by the way, I know you turn into a great four legged beast with a taste for humans once a month. But don't worry, I won't tell anybody. Well bye, gotta finish all my homework for the next month and a half. See you later!" Sirius said in a high voice, trying to imitate Lily. That made everybody laugh.

"Oh yeah." Remus said sheepishly. Lily got up out of James' lap, and gave Remus a hug.

"Sirius is right. And I wanted you to bring it up first. I hoped you would eventually, especially once we became prefects, because that meant you trusted me." She gave him another hug, and sat back down in James' lap. "But back to the animagus thing. How do you know so much about it?"

Sirius smirked at her, and suddenly there was a great black dog sitting in Sirius' place. Who promptly jumped off the chair and bounded over to Lily, placing its head in her lap, and wagging its tail. Lily laughed and pushed his head off her lap. The dog opened its mouth in a doggy smile, with its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth.

"Now I get your nicknames, and why you know so much about animagi. Padfoot, because you're a dog!" Lily said, kneeling to pet Sirius, and leaned closer to her, and licked the side of her face. Lily laughed, and James pulled her away from him.

"And that's where I draw the line. No licking my girlfriend Padfoot. Bad dog!" He laughed, and Sirius was laying on his back on the floor with his hair falling into his eyes.

"You're just jealous because she was paying more attention to me because I'm so much more cute and cuddly than you." He laughed.

"Actually, you look a lot like a Grim in that form Sirius. If you were more depressed-like, you could be a very passable Grim." Lily said. "Now, are you two animagi as well?" She asked James and Peter. They both nodded. "Don't change! I want to guess what your forms are."

Lily sat in thought for about five minutes. 'Wormtail and Prongs. Peter must be a rodent of some kind, and James must have antlers of some sort.' She thought. 'Peter might be a mouse, he seem pretty timid and nervous a lot. And James...what could he be? What animals have antlers? Deer , Moose, Elk, and Caribou. But which one?'

"Okay. Peter is a rodent of some kind, I think a mouse? Because you seem pretty timid and nervous a lot. And James has antlers, so he's probably a Stag, a Moose, an Elk or a Caribou. So how close was I?" She finally said. Sirius laughed, and James moved Lily so he could get up. The three others helped him move some of the furniture so there was enough room, and he and Peter transformed.

Standing in front of Lily was a magnificent dark brown, almost black Stag, with hazel eyes, and a fat black rat. Lily was a little surprised at Peters form, but was distracted by James'. He walked up to her, and nudged at her hand with his nose.

As she was petting his nose, she turned to Sirius and Remus.

"You three did all this for Remus." They both nodded, even though they knew it wasn't a question. "This is amazing." She breathed, looking at James. He changed back, and gave her a kiss.

"We found out he was a werewolf in Second year, and in Fifth year we managed to get the Transformations right, and started joining Remus during his transformations." James explained

"Because werewolves can't Bite animals, only humans!" Lily exclaimed. Remus nodded, smiling.

"So you aren't mad that we didn't tell you sooner, or that they broke about all of the school rules doing this?" He asked

"No, but only because you did all of this to help a friend, not for one of your little pranks. And I understand why you didn't tell me earlier. You didn't know that I knew, so if you had told me about the animagi thing, I would've wanted to know why, and then you would have been in an awkward situation."

Remus nodded appreciatively, and Lily snuggled back into James. The comfortable silence from earlier had resumed once again.

"Oh and by the way, you're now going to be referred to as Tiger. I have decided that will be your nickname Lily. Plus, it can be short for 'Tiger-Lily'!"

"Oh Sirius. Whatever are we going to do with you?"

"Love me forever and ever."

"Definitely not Padfoot."

"Shut it Prongs. I was talking to Tiger."

"Oh Merlin. We've created a monster."

"You know you love me, Tiger."


End file.
